Next Christmas, After Eternity
by Chyme for the Rhyme
Summary: 'Next Christmas' might still come for you, even if it takes hundreds of years to arrive.


The colours rush by in the shape of Christmas, red and green, prickly and pointed, like a star. They hang over doorways and across the entrances to alleyways, ones that aren't buried to your sight and refuse to hold a trap in their corners. Still, something about the point and turn to them, has you sliding into the main street, into a festive palace of neon lights. They blaze overhead, and Father Christmas, the line of his beard sparkling to the tune of thirty bulbs, waves, his hand dipping into darkness then sliding back, as the lights flicker and glow, flashing off and then on, off and then on.

You wonder why he isn't holding a tangerine. And then you remember that the human race isn't entirely stupid and that everyone hates tangerines.

It's a little surprising though, that nobody stops to ask you what you want for Christmas. You thought, or perhaps believed, that anyone was allowed to qualify for that.

* * *

You take a breath in the mountains, looking over the forests that emblaze across many a Christmas card. From here, they are a river of green, currents present in the way the tips of their leaves brush up into thorny points, the jagged ends of their branches meeting snow in a sulky, uneven pattern. Like the zig-zag on a cracker.

Clara, you think, would have loved this. Probably. You don't rightfully know.

Still. If someone's poetic enough to offer up the idea that memories don't just transform into stories, but also turn into songs... _well_. You can't imagine someone like _that_ turning away from a view like _this_.

The surrounding mountains, the ones stuck in the distance, turn purple under the sun. There's nobody else here apart from a few deer on their sides, plucking shoots of green from under the layer of light white that falls into their crevices.

It's beautiful. And you're not lonely at all. After all, you've learnt that if you tell a lie long enough, it is eventually forced into truth.

* * *

Love doesn't have colours, _that_ , you know. It has sounds, wrapped up inside memories. Tied up, with a bow, into a promise.

The trouble is, you can't remember any of your promises to Clara. But she did her best to remind you, gifting you with colours regardless of your beliefs. She gave you her colours, the memory of them one last time, gave you brown and pink, typical human colours, and doe eyes that looked in danger of swelling up like balloons. You suppose she also gave you blue as well. Blue, arranged into the folds of her dress, and then, later on, in the familiar lines of the TARDIS.

There's a promise in that, you think. One that says, no matter what, that you deserve to keep the shape of her face in your hearts.

Or perhaps that was simply Clara, saying to hell with the memory wipe, determined that there was still enough space inside the gap where she once lay, for her to force herself back inside. Honestly, you think you would have enjoyed travelling with someone like that.

Though, just as honestly, you can see how someone like that might have been too dangerous to let stay.

* * *

Two hundred years from now, you might walk into an American Diner, one that's launched itself against the coast of Cornwell. There will be red inside of course, gleaming against table tops and stools and counters. But there also might be green, hanging down from the ceiling in the shape of streamers and holly, freshly plucked from bushes that are, of course, nowhere near the salt-lashed ground of Cornwell.

The waitress, Clara, you will remind yourself, will be there, sprinkling flour against the counter.

'Oh, fake snow, very Christmasy,' you might say, hand flapping about in annoyance as this regeneration has a tendency to do. 'But at least it's messy. I approve.'

'I don't need your approval for how _I_ decide to decorate _my_ TARDIS,' she will say primly. 'Besides, it's nothing a little bit of elbow grease won't fix afterwards.'

'You know there is actually a cleansing function for the outer edges of the Tardis that the Chameleon Circuit engineers,' another voice might pipe up. It will come from the woman sitting in the far corner, nursing a glass of eggnog with a distrustful eye. A woman you will pretend not to know for another few seconds. Or maybe a minute. It will all depend upon whether or not someone points out that you're being 'rude.'

'I could...' the woman will continue, looking small and dark, in the way other people, like River and Jack, could never truly feel comfortable being. 'Well. I could actually-'

'Thank you Me, but no,' Clara will cut in, a friendly bite in her voice. 'There's nothing wrong will a little physical labour.' And then she will take another handful of flour out of the bag near her elbow, practically thrusting it, in one long spur of movement, over your elbow.

'Hey! I didn't say anything! You can't blame me for what other people say! ...Or is that a thing now? Are we doing a 'thing', now?'

'It's always been a thing. Sometimes we strike at the nearest target. But you'd know all about that, right?'

You will ignore that. And you will enjoy whatever time she will allow you to have with her. It is just another fragment of possibility, just a little motion within this universe that time will bend for, all so you can delight in the presence of someone designed to die.

You will be glad, afterwards, that there was no mistletoe dangling from the ceiling, no trap for you to step under, and nothing left, for you to be hurt by. Because for people like you two, even after hundreds of years, there are still some things that don't need to be said.

* * *

'Merry Christmas, Clara,' you say now, out in the mountains, for nobody to hear.

 _Merry Christmas, Doctor_ , you hear nobody say, in reply.

But that's alright. You can wait.


End file.
